With the launch this week of DeskScapes 2.0, a lot of people who didn't previously have access to animated wallpapers (i.e. non Ultimate Vista users) might be wondering what the big deal is, and probably want to take the app for a spin themselves before deciding whether or not to spend the $20 on the stand-alone product (hey, it's bundled in with Object Desktop).

To help you out, Island Dog has put together a very detailed breakdown of the free preview version of DeskScapes 2.0, letting you know exactly what comes with it and how it works.  If you're on the fence, or merely curious, give it a read.

For years now, the Help section at WinCustomize has been pretty lacking.  For the last two site revisions it's just been a bulleted list of links to product pages or long outdated tutorials and documentation.  With the number of new users seeking support and assistance growing at an increasing pace, the time has come for a complete redesign of the page.

To that end, I've spend the last few days working on a new Help page that is hopefully a bit more "helpful" than what we currently have.  The focus is on usability, and providing more information to users about what they're looking at.  Product information is being improved, we're linking back more and more to the WinCustomize Wiki etc.

Currently the page is all blocked out and I'm working on filling in all of the links and content.  Here's a small preview of the page.  Ignore the jagged images, they're being redone this afternoon.  And yes, the text is placeholder content just to fill out the page a bit.

If you want to see what the individual product links will bring up, click here for an example.

Huge thanks to nauticalpixel for helping me with the CSS for this page.  This is my first attempt at using CSS and boy did I need a lot of help!

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

TGIF everyone!  Since the end of the week is upon us, it's time once again for Island Dog to round up some of the week's most notable skins.

This week, there's a cursor theme, icon pack, logon, dock background, two wallpapers and a WindowBlinds skin!  Check them out, download a few and let the artists know how much you love their work!

Each month. during/after the Mods' meeting [held in IRC] we get to propose people for advancement....and I get to do the honours.

Congratulations, everyone....

Apprentice

Shelbygt    Link
Brickhead    Link
BigDogBigFeet    Link
Xiandi    Link
CountryYokel    Link

Master Apprentice

2of3    Link
Drill'n Boss    Link
CarGuy1    Link

Journeyman

theAVMAN    Link

We don't often talk about MyColors skins here, or the artists behind them.  We especially don't do a very good job showing off their work and recognizing the outstanding degree of artistry of the skins, icons, wallpapers etc.  This is a real shame considering they're all members of the community.

So today, I'd like to show off some absolutely fantastic icons by none other than PixelPirate himself!  These go to five of our upcoming MyColors Inspired Themes.  I think they stand out as some of the best icons I've seen in ages!

Can you guess which upcoming theme each belongs to?

Like the teaser?  This is just the first of many 

Every month, I ask the moderators here at WinCustomize to pick out their favorite skins from the previous month.  Here are the picks for April 2008.

Trader Harbour AlexMorgan "Clean.  Watch the little men walking on the right side of the house.  Great dream." - WOM	Organic Xiandi "The cursor (and iconpack it's based on) have such wonderful aesthetics.  It captures exactly what I thought it should when I read the title.  I'm looking forward to the upcoming WindowBlind." - Zubaz	Temple Oblivion kittymalone "Another stunning release from the brightest star on the Australian skinning-sky" - Snowman
Tribal Dragon 17 WS RPGFX "A really fun wallpaper that just looks cool, not to mention it recolors well to compliment any desktop theme you can imagine" - HG_Eliminator "It's a style I've always liked, and had attempted many times to do myself when I was making walls.  It's wonderful." - Erk

Some great skins on display from April.  Thanks to all the mods who participated this month and congrats to the selected skinners!

Stardock is excited to announce the release of WindowBlinds 6.1 today.  WindowBlinds is the easiest, and safest way to change the complete look and feel of both Windows Vista and XP by applying one of thousands of visual styles that are available.

These visual styles can change just about every element of the Windows user interface from the Start menu, task bar, title bar, push buttons, scrollbars, and nearly everything else in Windows.

The WindowBlinds 6.1 update is available to current customers as a free update, and users can upgrade either through Stardock Central or the Impulse preview.  The WindowBlinds 6.1 release includes the following updates:

• Several maintenance and performance tweaks.
• Option to force start button to the middle of skins.
• Explorer background feature.

The Explorer Background feature allows users to change the background of their explorer, along with the background color and opacity.  There are 30 different background textures to choose from, including a "no texture" option that lets you set just the color and transparency of the Explorer background.

WindowBlinds has a free download available for evaluation, and is $19.95 for the full enhanced version.  WindowBlinds is also part of the Object Desktop suite of desktop enhancements.

Link: WindowBlinds

Island Dog is back again with another video walkthrough to help you get the most out of your skinning tools.  This time it's a more in-depth video showing you how to change cursor sets, apply effects, trails and recolor cursors.

If you haven't delved too far into the innards of CursorFX yet, give this video a look.

Yes, I know it's Wednesday and I'm just now posting the poll thread for the week.  And I'm also aware that the poll has in fact been up for a full day already.  There are very good reasons for all of this, I assure you.  With all the announcements and major news going on the last two days, I didn't want the big "VOTE NOW" button to be lost in the chaos.  I also wanted to give people a day or so for the news to sink in.

So by now you've no doubt read about the fantabulous changes we've made to the WinCustomize Subscription (and probably got a chuckle as we joked over the "real" reason for the change). 

The short version is subscribers will now be getting 12 Stardock Design skins per year for free, but the price of the subscription has increased by $10 to pay for it (still a killer deal for the subscriber).

What I'd like to know is how people overall feel about the change.  Like it?  Love it?  Hate it more than anything you've ever encountered in your long and tortured life?  Let us know!

After months of testing, today Stardock is proud to release DeskScapes 2.0!  Now, all Windows Vista users can enjoy animated wallpapers on their PC without having to shell out hundreds of dollars for Windows Vista Ultimate.

DeskScapes 2.0 brings video and dynamic Dreams to all Vista Users.  If you're new to DeskScapes today with 2.0, then you have over 600 Dreams to choose from!  These range from fantastic 3D rendered scenes by community members such as TheMasterBaron, to dynamic Dreams that use virtually no system resources from Stardock Design.  If you haven't given DeskScapes a try and you're on Windows Vista, you've just run out of excuses not to!

DeskScapes 2.0, a component of ObjectDesktop, can also be purchased individually for $19.95.